Raymond Washington

Raymond Lee Washington (14 August 1953-9 August 1979) was one of the founders of the Crips gang in Los Angeles. He was imprisoned from 1974 to 1979, and he distanced himself from the Crips after his release, as he no longer held any influence in the disintegrating group of violent gangs. He was murdered by his former friends in a drive-by shooting.

Biography
Raymond Lee Washington was born in Los Angeles, California in 1953, and his parents separated when he was two years old. He was raised by his mother and stepfather in the South Central region of the city, and he developed an affinity for fist fighting as an adolescent, often getting him into trouble with the LAPD. He was frequently expelled from school, and he joined The Avenues gang during the late 1960s. In 1969, he founded the Baby Avenues, which re-branded itself as the Crips that same year; from 1971, Washington and Stanley Williams united several gangs under their control, turning each of these gangs into "sets" of the Crips. The Crips quickly became the largest street gang in the city, and Williams and Washington held a monopoly on crime in many lower-income African-American neighborhoods. Gangs that had resisted being absorbed into the Crips formed the "Bloods" confederation, and the Crips and Bloods took part in violent fights over territory and personal feuds.

In 1974, Washington was arrested for second-degree robbery, and he was sentenced to five years in prison in Tracy, becoming the first Crip incarcerated there. He began to recruit young African-American inmates into the Crips, much to the disapproval of the Nation of Islam and the Black Guerrilla Family gangs. In 1979, after serving his sentence, Washington returned to Los Angeles, and he was shocked to see that the gang wars between the Crips, Bloods, and Hispanic bloods now saw the use of firearms as well as fists. Washington saw that the Crips had broken down into loosely-affiliated sets without a common leadership, as Williams had become a PCP addict. Washington no longer held influence in the gang, and he began to distance himself from them.

Death
At 10:00 PM on 9 August 1979, as Washington hung out with friends on the corner of East 64th Street and South San Pedro Street in South Central, a car carrying some of his Crips acquaintances pulled up to the corner. Washington was called over to the car, and he engaged in a brief conversation with the occupants before the occupant in the passenger seat drew a sawed-off shotgun and shot Washington in the abdomen. He died during emergency surgery at the hospital.